


Of the King of the Alders

by RaisingCaiin



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Dubious Consent Due To Identity Issues, Extremely Dubious Consent, Gen, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Psychological Torture, Torture, someday i will write a fic for these two that does not include all or even half of those tags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-06
Updated: 2017-09-06
Packaged: 2018-12-24 11:52:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12012150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RaisingCaiin/pseuds/RaisingCaiin
Summary: Seeking to atone for sins not his own, Tyelperinquar pledges himself to a quest that seems doomed from the start.But doom comes in many forms, some of them stranger and less easily foreseen than others.





	Of the King of the Alders

**Author's Note:**

> Borrowing from Goethe's chilling [Erlkoenig](http://germanstories.vcu.edu/goethe/erl_dual.html), which, depending on how the translator works, can be read as either "King of the Elves" or "King of the Alders"

Alders, trees of portent and omen, line the banks of the Narog. Even in the slimmest of moons, their leaves glimmer crimson and gold.

Blood, if Tyelperinquar allows himself to think on these colors, and sinew – appropriate enough for the death throes of autumn.

Of what other deaths such shades might portend, he does not allow himself to think.

Edrahil is the first to emerge from the low-hung door hewn into the walls of Nargothrond. Findaráto’s tall captain of the guard is forced to duck low, swing his dark head – oddly naked without his helm of office – to fit beneath the lintel. His gaze darts left and right in a cursory sweep, and when he deems the way clear, he calls back, soft and low, to someone behind him.

It is, then, as Tyelperinquar thought – suspected – feared. Findaráto’s faithful must creep out from Nargothrond under cover of night, as though _they_ were the thieves and usurpers, the betrayers of oath and kin.

“No mounts, guardsman?” It is not truly a question – where they are going, no innocent beast of burden should be asked to follow. And too, it is not entirely wise, nor safe, to announce himself so – but it would be worst yet to wait, to let Edrahil walk into him unawares.

Findaráto’s captain of the guard has no love for Tyelperinquar.

And that lack is well deserved.

Edrahil spots him quickly enough, though his dark clothes and coloring would allow him to evade even Eldarin sight easily, should he wish it. But Tyelperinquar is not trying to hide.

Not now. Not anymore.

“You.” With a practiced motion, Findaráto’s chief guardsman draws the sword at his side.

“I.” Tyelperinquar spreads his hands wide, showing they are empty.

“Call your father out, from wherever he is hiding.” Edrahil raises his voice and his sword, though both remain steady. By his glare, he is quite ready to give that blade its first taste of Noldo blood.  “If that wretch is low enough to obstruct even the flight of the doomed, then let him stand forward and face us himself!”

It hurts, in a distant fashion, to be called the son of a man whose son he is not. “Curufinwë does not know I am here.”

“A likely story,” Edrahil snarls. But from behind him comes an inquiring call, and grudgingly he steps aside, his eyes never leaving Tyelperinquar.

From that low-hung doorway then stumble a ragtag group of souls. A fletcher. A lady’s maid. A cook’s apprentice. A stablehand. A few of Edrahil’s guards. Beren, the Man who not three days past came before Findaráto to plead fulfillment of an oath that the King had once given the Man’s own father.

_(Tyelperinquar would be angrier at Beren, he would, if he did not already know a thing or two about fathers and their oaths)_

But Edrahil keeps himself between Tyelperinquar and this motley assembly. “Tell him to stay back!” he orders one of his guards, but it is too late.

Into the moonlight and the shadows of the alders steps Findaráto Felagund. “Tyelperinquar?”

In the days since Beren arrived in Nargothrond, holding aloft a silver ring _(a snake with emerald eyes devouring his brother’s tail, and being devoured himself in turn)_ , Findaráto has aged a lifetime. Ever a gentle soul, who even in battle prefers the mercy of a clean kill, he looks wearier now than Tyelperinquar has ever seen him before.

Tyelperinquar knows who is to blame for this change, and it is not simply Beren. “I have come to join you, my king.”  

Findaráto sighs, and, stepping forward, taps at Edrahil’s arm in implicit request that he step aside.

Edrahil will not move.

With another sigh, Findaráto steps around his chief guardsman, evading the panicked hand that would draw him back to safety.

“This is a fool’s quest, nephew,” he tells Tyelperinquar, coming to stand some slight distance before him. Edrahil snarls as he follows. “And we will all die in vain pursuit of it.”

The younger of his few followers stir with some unease, but none make any move to turn back.

“Shut your fool mouth,” Edrahil growls at Beren when the Man looks as though he would speak. “ ‘Tis by your hand that this has come to pass at all!”

Beren subsides.

“I can fight,” Tyelperinquar tells Findaráto. As if that were the issue at hand.

“I do not doubt that you can,” Findaráto murmurs, the ghost of amusement coloring his voice. Unsaid lies where, and from whom, Tyelperinquar might have learned such skills. “But my followers were not chosen upon the basis of their fighting prowess.”

Of course they were not, for these ten, and Beren, were not chosen at all. They are all who are left, all who would stand beside their king when Tyelkormo sprang to his feet and declaimed again the Oath – and then when Curufinwë slithered to his, giving a pretty speech deconstructing each piece of that oath, in case any missed it, and reminding all Nargothrond what wrath would be called down upon its people did Findaráto aid this Man in regaining the Silmarilli.

But Tyelperinquar does not say this.

Neither does Edrahil.

“We were chosen for our loyalty, Fëanorian, for our honor.” Findaráto’s captain spits the words. “Bases upon which you are immediately disqualified, no matter how smart the tricks you might play with your ill-gotten sword.”

His sword, Tyelperinquar might point out, is still in its sheath. Edrahil’s is not.

But he does not say this either.

And it is telling that Findaráto neither corrects nor quells his captain of the guard. “Stay with your father, Tyelpe,” he says softly. “Be safe.”

 _While you can_ , goes unsaid but not unheard.

It is time, then. “I have no father.”

“Nephew?” Findaráto looks alarmed. And yes, perhaps, that does make it sound as if Tyelperinquar has admitted to joining the basest practices of his former house, and becoming a kinslayer.

Which is not it at all. What he has done might be considered far worse.

“Curufinwë has been foresworn. I have no father.” It comes out as a whisper. “The house from which I came is tainted, my king, and I would win back what shreds of my own honor I can, as an outcast.”

Gesturing for Edrahil to begin leading the others down to the banks of the rushing Narog – and then again, more emphatically, when at first his chief guardsman will not leave them – Findaráto comes back to stand before Tyelperinquar. Then, when at last they are alone, the others picking their way down toward the river, Findaráto asks quietly, “Will you tell me, Tyelpe?”

“There is nothing to tell, my king,” Tyelperinquar tells him, equally soft. “Save that I have brought my own provisions, and that I am willing to die with you – for you – as are your other ten.”

By his widened eyes, it seems that only now Findaráto has realized: not once since this exchange began has Tyelperinquar called him uncle.

When still the uncrowned king of Nargothrond hesitates, though, it is time for Tyelperinquar to offer all that he has left to offer. “I am prepared to do anything, my king, that you would need as proof of my bond. Should you wish an oath of me, even.”

Finrod starts, surprised, but – he does not quite recoil. There is no rejection of the idea, no instinctive insistence that Tyelperinquar need not offer such a fell thing.

So. That is how they stand, then. 

“You know that I am chaste in this,” Tyelperinquar presses. “But speak the word, and I will give you my oath. With that bond and this blood, my king, you can rest assured that I will do just as you command me. _Whatever_ you might command of me.”

Findaráto is still a moment longer before some shadow falls behind his eyes, and he looks away, down to the Narog below.

“No, Tyelperinquar Penatar.” The name acknowledges Tyelperinquar fatherless, but the accompanying sigh does not seem to for sorrow or regret at the loss. “Useful as such an oath would be – and much as I imagine it would pain Curufinwë, did he ever hear of it – I will not darken my spirit so, to have been the one demanding such a thing, rather than giving it freely myself.”

It does not escape Tyelperinquar that Findaráto has not said he trusts him, nor denied that Tyelperinquar deserves the weight, the burden, of an oath upon his spirit. No – the uncrowned king of Nargothrond is thinking only of his own unstained hands, and of those loyal spirits who await him on the banks below.  

Good. Much as these things pain Tyelperinquar to note, they are better this way too.

For in casting off Curufinwë, he is of no blood now to the once-king of Nargothrond, either.

 

~ ~ ~

They walk in single file, with Edrahil leading and Findaráto close behind him. Beren follows, and then another and another of Findaráto’s faithful few.

Tyelperinquar is almost, but not quite, last.

Edrahil’s thoughts in this arrangement are clear enough. Tyelperinquar, the reasoning goes, cannot be trusted anywhere near Findaráto, but neither can he be placed in either of the most dangerous places, though there he would be the first casualty. If he is in the fore, Edrahil’s reasoning runs, Tyelperinquar will lead them right into whatever trap Curufinwë has planned for them. And if he is in the rearguard, he will stab his nearest companion in the back, or leave tokens for his father’s killers to follow them, or roll over and show his belly at the first sign of attack by dark creatures.

This reasoning itself does not sting Tyelperinquar. _(it is just what he would do, after all, if presented with a supposed follower of such questionable history)_ Edrahil’s unsubtlety in arranging it, though – as if daring him to comment – does. 

The journey ahead of them will be an arduous one. Tyelperinquar himself has never seen the Ered Engrin, the Iron Mountains ( ** _blessed child_** _, whispers the shade of a blood-haired kinsman clutching his side, **and may you never** )_ but he can imagine the route that Edrahil and Findaráto will have planned all the same.

First due north, along the banks of the Narog, til they reach its source at the Falls of Ivrin, where the river meets the Ered Wethrin, the Mountains of Shadow. From there, north and east, sidling along in the shadows of the Wethrin til they reach the plains of Ard Galen.

Well. Ard Galen as it was of old, but the Great Green Plain no more; now the Anfauglith, the wastelands of choking dust, poisoned and scoured with the Dagor Bragollach. And then, north and east across the Anfauglith, to Thangorodrim and Angband beyond.

Where Findaráto believes they will all die at Morgoth’s hand, in a pursuit no less foolhardy than the mad last stand of Nolofinwë, not three tens of years before them.

Overhead, the alders shiver with some breeze that Tyelperinquar cannot even feel. As if, he imagines, he were dead already.

~ ~ ~

Beneath the cover of alder and pine, they make better time than Tyelperinquar would have expected, north along the Narog. And surprisingly, it is not Beren, the fragile Man, who slows them most _(or perhaps not surprisingly – he is said to have survived the trek across Nan Dungortheb, after all),_ but some of the other Eldar.

The slight young cook’s apprentice, for one. His name is Asëanarmo, and he has seen just over a century; Tyelperinquar catches him watching everything about him with wide, dark eyes.

Each night when they make camp Edrahil eyes this young apprentice, and the other not-fighters like him, with wariness and exasperation and protectiveness by turns. Findaráto’s chief guardsman looks as though he does not know what to make of those who would leave what he must deem coddled lives; as if he knows, better than they do, what a terrible awakening they yet face.

Asëanarmo, unpracticed and untrained, does not notice them watching him. He is not wary, precisely. Nor is he is afraid, yet.

But, in his own quiet way, he is so very, very angry.

This bewilders Edrahil too.

But Tyelperinquar is not confused by such smoldering anger at all. He knows why this gentle soul found the courage to stand by his uncrowned king.

In Nargothrond, when Curufinwë hungered but did not care to do his own hunting, he would send his brother. Tyelkormo knew his tastes, and was already familiar with enough of Findaráto’s people that he knew just the leverage to coax most to their knees. His selections tended to come from the stables or the grounds or the kitchens – places beneath Curufinwë’s notice in his daily life – but Tyelperinquar had never heard Curufinwë complain.

Everything else, though, he did hear. Nargothrond was built to magnify its people in all aspects of their lives – their work, their play, their joy, their leisure. Their pleasure, and their pain.

What Curufinwë required in a bedmate, Tyelperinquar never quite discerned – not youth, nor beauty, nor station, not male or female. But whatever it was, Tyelkormo, ever the willing hound, sniffed it out. Ever when ordered from Curufinwë’s side, he would find some new playmate to spoil and pet and cajole – some new treat to bring back in offering to his brother.

And Asëanarmo, poor creature, had been the last sweet-talked into Curufinwë’s bed before the sons of Fëanor stood and denounced Findaráto before all of Nargothrond.

Even Tyelperinquar had not seen him creep from the kitchens that day. But when Findaráto had cast his silver crown down at his own feet – when Edrahil had snatched it up, and passed it to Orodreth before hurrying out after his king – Asëanarmo had been the next to follow. And after him had gone one, then another, and another, of the ten who now surround their uncrowned king, huddling into their bedrolls beneath the shivering alders.

Guilt, as Tyelperinquar would imagine Asëanarmo has just recently discovered, is a most intimate emotion. It will decay even the strongest from the inside out, and no one remedy will cure it. Tyelperinquar would know – he has tried, he is trying, every remedy he can imagine, and even so, he still feels thin-skinned and hollow as a rotting tree.    

~ ~ ~

Perhaps guilt is why Findaráto went with Beren.

But, if that is the design with which the Man had come to them – to play upon the king’s guilt, or even in doing this to try and assuage his own guilt on his lady’s behalf – well, then.

If either is so, then they have all been underestimating the Man, and the recklessness of his plan, most severely.

And if that is so, then Findaráto was right, and they will all die for it.

~ ~ ~

Something is wrong, Tyelperinquar realizes, the night they first reach the shadow of the looming Ered Wethrin. The clearing Edrahil has picked is unsoiled, and easily defended, nestled beside the Falls of Ivrin with its back to the mountains and the Narog to its left, only two sides left open into the forest, but –

No, something is amiss.

And it is Edrahil, blast it, who is standing first watch.

 _(he has not assigned Tyelperinquar a watch at all, and will not let him stand one alone, even if Tyelperinquar volunteers. And for every watch that is stood over the camp, Tyelperinquar suspects, another guard is tasked to lie awake in their bedroll and simply watch_ him _)_

He picks his careful way forward to stand beside the chief guardsman, who has taken up his post beneath the alders on the furthest side of the clearing. Edrahil neither looks to nor acknowledges him, keen eyes scanning his new domain, never resting long in one place – the sign of a good watchman.

A good watchman, Tyelperinquar feels with a shiver, will not be enough this night. “Something is amiss.”

“Well, you are with us still, so yes,” Edrahil says, agreeably.

“Something else.” Edrahil’s anger is earned, Tyelperinquar tells himself; Tyelperinquar’s own is not. “As if we are being watched.”

“That is what the watch does, well spotted.” Though Edrahil’s attention never seems to waver from his unending scans, Tyelperinquar knows just how much of it is also centered on him. “Enough with your pestering, brat, and back to your bedroll.”

Patience, Tyelperinquar; patience, and serenity. “We are not safe here, guardsman.”

“Nor will we be, since we’re running off to die at the Dark Vala’s feet, and whose fault is that, eh?” Curufinwë’s, of course, and, by Edrahil’s reckoning, Tyelperinquar’s too. “Be off with you.”

Something is watching them – Tyelperinquar can feel its eyes. He swallows, willing down the rising panic. “Guardsman.”

“Traitor,” Edrahil echoes, affably.

“ _Guardsman_. Something is-“

There. Across the Narog, mirroring their position near exactly.

“Edrahil. Edrahil!”

The wight is tall and spectral, in posture and color near indistinguishable from the alders it sways beneath. Like a king it is crowned, but its crown is bone; like a king it is robed, but its train is the night itself, dragged soundless through the dead and dying blood-red leaves.

“If you do not remove your hand from my arm then I will remove it myself, and rather more permanently,” Edrahil says, pleasantly.

Tyelperinquar removes his hand.

“Guardsman. Across the bank – beneath the trees. Do you see it?”

To his credit, Edrahil does sweep the opposite bank with his eyes.

But Tyelperinquar shivers as he realizes they pass right over the wight.

Edrahil – Edrahil does not see it.

“Nothing but a streak of fog, traitor. At least you’re jumping at more than shadows this time, I suppose.”

He has not been raising false alarms. He is not raising false alarms! He is not-

 _Sweet child._ No wind stirs, this night, and though the air is still, cool with the spray of the falls, it lies moist and heavy as the dead. Still, some fell current carries the words to Tyelperinquar’s ears as though the speaker stood at his side, close as Edrahil. _None will see me that I do not wish, none hear me unless I will it._

“Guardsman. Guardsman! _Edrahil_!”

 _But thou – thou_ art _a pretty morsel! Many a game I would play with thee, and gladly, didst thou come with me. What would tempt thee, sweet? Garments of gold thou may have by my hand; spring everlasting, stars plucked from the crown of the sky!_

“No!”

“Have you gone utterly _mad_? It is naught but the wind in the leaves!” Edrahil hisses. _(but no wind stirs, this night)_ “Shut your fool _mouth_ , quisling, lest you bring every dark creature between here and the Anfauglith down upon us!”

 _No?_ Across the bank, the wight sways. In Tyelperinquar’s ears, its voice echoes with some amusement, a terrible mockery of his denial echoing: no, no, no. . . _How rare a pet you are, to refuse such riches! Pleasure, then? A fair substitute, I concur._

“NO!” Tyelperinquar falls to the grounds of the forest, clutching at his ears to block them. Above him Edrahil towers, his lips moving furiously, but Tyelperinquar cannot hear him.

He can still hear the other.

_It has been an age since I last took a lover, but for thee, I imagine I could make the exception. What is thy preference – shall I spread thy legs wide and play between them, or wouldst prefer the indulgence of mine?_

His head is wrenched to the side as Edrahil’s mailed glove smashes across the side of his face.

“ – to silence, caterwauling like a dog after a bitch in heat –“

“Tyelperinquar?”

A gentle touch descends upon the shoulder nearest Edrahil’s blow, and Tyelperinquar’s shriek pierces the still of the night.

The hand is pale, and slim, and cold, but it is only Findaráto’s.

“What has happened here, Edrahil?” Findaráto asks, but Edrahil is already turning his head, raising his mailed and bloody fist in the gesture for silence.

As the echo of his fear rebounds from the Wethrin above and dies away, even Tyelperinquar can hear it – the tromp of iron-heeled boots.

No Elda, not even the Noldor, would wear such things, make such noises.

 “You,” Edrahil breathes, turning back upon Tyelperinquar with a fell light in his eyes. If not for Findaráto’s hand still at Tyelperinquar’s shaking shoulder, Edrahil looks as though he would strike Tyelperinquar again – strike him _down_ – with every indication of pleasure. “Bastard son of a demon whoremonger, you have brought the enemy down upon us!” 

Findaráto does not gainsay him, only removes his hand; Tyelperinquar does not apologize, nor grab for Findaráto’s retreating hand. What is done, is done, and must simply be dealt with.

“Blade,” Tyelperinquar gasps, hoarsely, as Findaráto’s followers rouse themselves, the shouts and the bray of horns and the stamp of booted feet drawing ever closer. His ears still ring, with the words of the wight and the doom of his own cry. “Arm me; let me fight.”

He was stripped of his knives and his bow and his sword by the riverbank, that first night leaving Nargothrond. He is not entirely useless without them – he could probably kill at least an orc or two before being slain himself – but he will be of more value to their survival with at least one weapon beyond his two hands and his guilt.

Edrahil rather looks as though the only blade he would give Tyelperinquar is a sword through the gut, but Findaráto hesitates.

“Please, my king.” By now Tyelperinquar has regained the strength and balance that he would need to raise himself, but instead he remains kneeling at Findaráto’s feet – a supplicant before his lord. “Let me fight for you as best I can.”

_(if I am to die, then let me die for you, which is as best I can)_

The first of an entire company of orcs pours into their camp from the darkened forest beyond; underfoot, the autumn-felled leaves of the alders gleam red as blood.

Findaráto presses one of his own knives, its hilt pale and sharp as bone, into the upraised palm of Tyelperinquar’s hand.

~ ~ ~

They survive.

Just barely.

In the aftermath, the orcs are slain or driven into the arms of the Narog to drown, and none of Findaráto’s thirteen have died. But several have taken wounds, some of them grave – wide-eyed Asëanarmo, for one, took a rusted spear through the belly, and now lies prostrate in the grass, the stablehand Nyárë drawing upon her training in beast-medicine to do what she might for the wound.

Despite his mutilation, though, even Asëanarmo makes no sound beyond the softest of wretched gasps. Unlike Tyelperinquar, who had screamed the smallest of nerves to all who had ear to hear it.

The orcish cudgel he has somehow gained in the fight now slips from his suddenly nerveless grasp. Findarato’s fine knife is long since lost.

This is not the first skirmish Tyelperinquar has known, and these are not the first orcs he has slain. Most usually, though, the great roulette of life and death that is the battlefield ends with something of decisiveness – you win, and you drink, and you drag your dead to their pyres, or you lose, and you run, and you leave your dead to their desecration.

But this – this great gaping silent aftermath in which they all yet live – is stale, somehow. Useless. Pointless. Nothing has quite been lost, no, but – nothing has been achieved, either.

The alder leaves underfoot are too wet with blood, trodden too far into the grass and the muck underneath, to stir even if there was a breeze.

Which still there is not.  

Tyelperinquar stumbles away from the others, to fall to his knees and retch beneath the shadow of the closest trees.

The alders do not judge him. Or, if they do, then it is a judgment quiet and solemn enough that it feels nearly like mercy.

 

~ ~ ~

After their close call with death, still so far from where it rightfully awaits them, north upon the Anfauglith, Beren wants Findaráto to have his party dress in the orcish gear.

“We will not,” Edrahil grits out from between his teeth. He is sat upon the bloody grass, near hobbled by an orcish strike to his left leg. Nyárë has dosed and bound what she can, but it may not be enough; Edrahil will still have to walk upon that leg, or else he will not walk at all.

But Findaráto seems to be considering the Man’s words.

_(he survived the Nan Dungortheb for a reason, after all, and it was not simply by being alone and half-mad)_

“What favors this approach?” he asks Beren.

Beren is already kneeling, beginning to strip the carcass of one of the orcs with unsettling ease – the comfortable effortlessness of a scavenger. “Look, my king. Do you see this mark?”

Tyelperinquar can see it, even from here. It is a crimson eye.

“Orcs do not wear common marks unless they follow a captain strong enough to enforce the bearing of them,” Beren continues. Having wrestled the jerkin and rusty armor from the corpse, he starts in on the rough tunic. “And this? Some thirty-odd orcs, so far from His lands, and all wearing the same mark? Even I have rarely seen such a thing. Little is stable, in the Dark One’s realms – insignias change as quickly as lower loyalties, His captains jostling for resources and territories in endless war for His favor.”

“Get on with it,” Edrahil snarls. “Say what you mean to say!”

Beren does not even look to him. Instead he stands, hands full of orcish gear; the carcass lies, naked and bloodied, ignored at his feet. 

“No orc-captain I have encountered, my king, could maintain such discipline, or run such ordered patrols so far south of the wastes or east of the tainted forests,” he tells Findaráto. “And our numbers are weakened, though not yet diminished.”

 _(not yet diminished, he says, not_ yet _diminished)_

“So it is best that we best take what protection we can,” Findaráto finishes wearily, eyeing the gear that Beren holds out to him with exhausted acceptance.  

Beren only nods.

In the background somewhere, the wounded Asëanarmo coughs, twice; cries out softly in pain, once; and falls quiet once more.

Findaráto decides. “We will take the gear.”

Those hale enough to stand are set to peeling away the least bloody and ill-used of the orcish armor and equipment. Beren directs them not to cut the insignia of the crimson eye, for the unknown captain’s mark is to be their safe passage through unsafe lands; Findaráto, a break in his beautiful voice, orders them leave what remains of their raiment from Nargothrond behind.

They make a pallet for Asëanarmo by spreading orcish cloaks between two alder boughs. For Curufinwë rules Nargothrond now, and there will be no mercy for any of Findaráto’s sympathizers, should they return. Their wounded must come with them.

The pale sunrise finds them alive, but reeking of death – twelve Eldar, and one Man, arrayed as orcs, the wretched remainder of a defeated company dragging their wounded north in ignominious retreat.

Overhead the alders whisper. Still there is no breeze.  

 

~ ~ ~

The following days flow like the Narog – slow and calm on the surface, but treacherously deep at heart.

They take turns bearing Asëanarmo, one at the head of his makeshift pallet and another at the foot. Other injuries demand attention too – one guard was blinded, and must be guided; others must be dosed, their heads checked for fever and their eyes for the first signs of orcish strain. Edrahil must lean upon another’s shoulder, for his leg worsens steadily; Nyárë fears she will soon be forced to stop changing the dressings, lest the rot beneath, borne of some foul poison she has never seen, take to the air. Edrahil waves the concern away, and hobbles on.

To support their wounded are tasks that fall to all in equal measure. Even, finally, Tyelperinquar; their need has become so great that they will take from even him, now.

And nights beneath the shadow of the Wethrin roll slower still.  

_(when Tyelperinquar offers to stand watch now he is not refused, but only because Edrahil actually cannot stand alone and unaided)_

The wight comes to him nightly, now. Tyelperinquar has stopped asking if Edrahil or anyone else can see it.

“Your specter out there haunting us tonight?” Edrahil asks, mockingly. Though he must hold watch while seated, now, his eyes and tongue are no less keen or piercing for the slow death gnawing at his leg.

The wight has drawn closer, this night, and now stands watching them from the very edge of their camp. This close, Tyelperinquar can almost make out a face. This close, he imagines he can see a curved gash of a mouth, curling up in mimicry of a smile.

“Yes,” he answers Edrahil. His voice sounds hollow and resigned, even to his own ears.

“Well, bid it a fair evening from me,” Edrahil snorts. He shifts in pain, his leg obviously in increasing agony.

 _So even pleasure is not to thy taste, then – thou_ art _a precocious bauble!_

Tyelperinquar would pray for mercy, he would, if he thought he deserved such a boon. Or even _(for he has fallen far enough from his former strength to do so)_ if only he thought there were some chance that the Valar would grant him such mercy, deserved or not.

_What wouldst have in its stead then, hmm? Dost crave affection of another sort, perhaps?_

_(‘no son of mine would ever-‘ Curufinwë starts. ‘then I will stop you there’ Tyelperinquar says)_

Tyelperinquar cannot suppress a shiver that runs the length of his body.

“It is hardly that cold, quisling,” Edrahil mutters.

_O-ho, thou dost! Name it, then, precious creature, and thou wilt have it. Seekest thou the care of a womb-mate, their laughter and dancing beside thee? No, that is not it. The caress of a dame’s hand to thy brow, then? No. The approval of a sire, perhaps – ah. Oh, sweet one. But come thou with me, and I will see to it that thou shalt never want for any of these, ever again._

“Can you not see it, guardsman?” If there are tears in his voice, Tyelperinquar promises himself, they are – they are tears of fear, that is it, fear. “It stands among the alders, and whispers promises to the deepest needs of the heart!”

“Most likely because that _is_ a bloody alder,” Edrahil growls. “Stop fooling about and stand your watch in silence for once, eh? Any heart left to you, or to me, is no longer our own, but our king’s.”

But the wight is king here, Tyelperinquar wishes he could say – king of the alders, and even the strength and purity of Findaráto cannot save them when they are surrounded by its trees.  

A sensation not unlike a gentle hand seems to brush through his hair, even through the orcish helm, and Tyelperinquar bites back a cry of _(longing)_

fear.

_(longing)_

 

~ ~ ~

Then one day the watchtower of Minas Tirith rises up from the fog to greet them.

Or rather, the remains of proud Minas Tirith, at least. For it seems that Findaráto’s watchtower on an isle in the midst of the Sirion has been thrown to the ground, and only the ruins of its stone walls, crawling with the Dark Lord’s creatures, remain.

“Oh,” Findaráto says, quietly. That explains where the orcish patrol had come from, then.

It also explains Orodreth’s sudden arrival at the borders of Nargothrond some years after the fall of Nolofinwë, shivering and raving of specters and wolves and eyes in the dark, utterly unable to say what had befallen him.

Utterly alone, as well.

Nothing more had been possible to gather of what had befallen Minas Tirith, though. None that Findaráto had sent to gather news of that proud watchtower since had returned, and soon enough he had been forced to wage warfare closer to home, with the growing advances of Curufinwë and Tyelkormo.  

And now here, beneath the very shadow of the watchtower that had once guarded the Pass from the north, is Beren’s counsel to assume orcish gear put to the test. For they are seen, and surrounded, and ordered to follow, across a rough bridge and into the ruins, to make their report.

“Report?” Findaráto asks, dazed. It is as if he has forgotten the terrible gear that they all bear – as if he has forgotten that, from the other side of these rusted helms, his party must look much like those now surrounding them.

But at least the orcs who stopped them also bear the crimson eye now displayed so prominently along their own breasts.

“Boss’s orders – every’un comes this way, reports t’ him,” the orcs’ foreman grunts. “B’sides. Founnit kind’ve funny you lot were gonna walk right by. Mighty suspicious, seemed t’ think.”

“Oh. _Oh_. Well, yes, very well.” Without further warning Findaráto’s voice loses the cadence that Tyelperinquar has always known of it, and the uncrowned king of Nargothrond is speaking in the orcish fashion. “Geddon wi’ it then, yeah? Patrols t’ run, an’ all!”

The foreman still grumbles suspiciously, but at his shouted orders the others slacken the circle around Findaráto’s party. After a moment’s hesitation, Findaráto motions for the morning’s pallet-bearers to lift Asëanarmo once more, and for all to follow the foreman across the bridge to Tol Sirion and on into crumbled Minas Tirith.

Findaráto himself holds back til he can walk alongside Edrahil, and Tyelperinquar at his side, bearing over half the chief guardsman’s limping weight.

 “We are the remains of the company sent south to the Ivrin,” Findaráto murmurs hurriedly. “We were set upon by an Eldarin patrol, and though we slew them, the cost to us was heavy. Edrahil, you are our leader. I can speak no more if I am to protect us.”

He will – what?

How is Findaráto to protect them from whatever orc-captain they encounter within these crumbling walls? If even one of them is made to remove their orcish head-gear to give some false report, they will all be seen for what they are, and all will be lost, long before they have even set sight upon their goal.

But Edrahil nods, determined, though his eyes are glassy with pain and fever. “It will be done, my king.”

Findaráto, Tyelperinquar imagines, is smiling sadly beneath the rusted helm that hides his features. “By now, old friend, most would have broken with naming me by a title I no longer bear.”

“I am not most,” Edrahil whispers. Pain lies heavy in his voice, as does something like defeat – by now the wound-rot has marked him for death, and he knows it. But that defeat is for himself, not Findaráto. “And you will always be my king.”

But are not they all dead, one way or another? Findaráto will soothe whatever orcish chieftain holds these lifeless ruins, and they will soldier on, but Edrahil will collapse sooner or later; Asëanarmo will succumb to the chasm in his gut. They will encounter another company, and fight, and whether they win or lose _(and they will lose, next time)_ more will fall.

And then the Anfauglith, and Thangorodrim, and Angband.

They may yet walk, but they are all dead already. All of them.

Findaráto’s hand lingers a moment longer upon Edrahil’s shoulder – a blessing, perhaps, from the last of the Noldor fit to give one – before he falls back to the rear of their party.

Edrahil adjusts his weight against Tyelperinquar’s shoulder, and straightens his frame as best he can. “All right, then, quisling. Forward we go.”

The last Tyelperinquar sees of the world beyond Minas Tirith is the weak sunlight shimmering upon the leaves of the alders.

 

~ ~ ~

The rumors, it appears, are true. Findaráto Felagund is a Singer, one of the rare Eldar who can touch upon what shreds of the eternal Music still pulse upon these shores.

 

~ ~ ~

Across the bridge and into what must have been the ground barracks of Minas Tirith the orcs escort them. The upper levels of the watchtower have been torn down, so that above them stretches a gaping maw whose dark heights no torch can pierce.

None of their escort seem to notice Findaráto’s voice – low, and calm, and near tuneless – beyond grumbles and scratching at their ears, but those of Findaráto’s own party cannot miss it. Or the fact that it is Song.

And Song, Tyelperinquar finds, is like nothing he has ever known before. Some strange mass – restraining but not vindictive, heavy but within the limits of what he can bear – settles within his blood and atop his bones, weighing him down like armor forged into his very frame.

Whatever Findaráto is doing, it neither heartens nor comforts, precisely. But then, upon the Anfauglith where they are bound – and to a lesser extent even here, in the ruins of a former Noldorin stronghold – neither heart nor comfort has any place. Resolve alone will see them through.

And in such dark times, such dim places, resolve cannot be fueled by power, or even bulwarked by faith. It must be driven by will.

And it is of the will now that Findaráto’s voice – Findaráto’s Song – reminds them, his followers.

_Reveal not our names or our purpose, my loyal ones – only hold steady, and faithful, and true._

_Beyond the dusk of our current woes, the morn shines on; beyond these grim walls, sun and stars still rise, and when all is done we shall run ahead to greet them._

_Night and its visions vex us not, for Day shall come again. Despair and its shades afflict us not, for Day shall come again!_

Even as its notes settle within them, though, Tyelperinquar realizes that Findaráto’s Song is having some other effect. If he looks now at Edrahil beside him, or else at the others of their party around them, he can see nothing but orcs.

Findaráto is also concealing them. His Song will obscure the truth of their party and purpose from whatever orcish captain awaits them up ahead, within the heart of fallen Minas Tirith.

 

~ ~ ~

And then they are there, in what was once the heart of the proudest bastion against the plagues of Angband. And there, seated on a throne made of rubble in the center is their captor – whom the light of the torches reveal is no orc-captain.

It is Tyelperinquar’s wight, and

and

he is the lieutenant of Morgoth himself.

 

~ ~ ~

Sun and stars shall rise, perhaps, but Findaráto’s followers will not run out to greet them.

Day will come again, perhaps, but only til the beast great enough to blot out its light is born.

 

~ ~ ~

“Who art thou?” inquires Morgoth’s lieutenant.

Its voice – _his_ voice – is so terribly, terribly reasonable and mild.

Edrahil, as supposed leader of their supposed orc-company, opens his mouth, and aided by Findaráto’s concealing Song, out comes orc-speech. “Patrol t’ th’ south.”

“Is that so.” Morgoth’s lieutenant stands, and with a dreadful grace, steps down from his throne of rubble. “And thy assigned station and base of operations?”

“Erm, Ivrin Falls. Jumped by a pack’a them fuckin’ elves. Killed ‘em, yeah, but got our asses han’ed t’ us in turn. Summa my fighters need healin’. Summa them need a quick knife t’ th’ throat.”

Judging by the grimace upon Edrahil’s orc-face, he mislikes the words that Findaráto’s Song is placing in his mouth. But the fact that Findaráto’s chief guardsman is feeling only distaste, and not terror, is sign enough that no one but Tyelperinquar is seeing who and what they truly face.

Valar save them. Valar save them all. Morgoth’s lieutenant knows that they are disguised, and even if he cannot yet tell who they truly are, he is playing at their same game.

“Goodness.” Morgoth’s lieutenant drifts closer still, gliding to a serene stop before Edrahil. As he is the one propping the guardsman up, Tyelperinquar is now but two arms’ length from the shade that has so haunted his nights and stirred his dreams.

Two arms’ length. He could reach out and touch him.

Two arms’ length. Valar save them all.

He keeps his head down.

“And such a long way to come, too, especially with such injuries in thy party!” Morgoth’s lieutenant continues, and oh the rising mockery! “Truly, captain, thy leadership is to be commended, though I do wonder why thou hast not already made use of that remedy thou hast just suggested, and put thine knife to some of these unsalvageable throats.”

How can none of them hear that speech, so definitively not an orc’s? How can none of them feel that gathering doom, so certainly signaling that their end will be here, and not upon the wastes of the Anfauglith?

“Because, pet,” answers Morgoth’s lieutenant. Finally abandoning all pretense of seeking information from Edrahil, he turns slowly to look upon the orc-form that Findaráto’s song has made of Tyelperinquar. “I have told thee before, in fact; none will hear or see me as I am, unless I will it.”

That means – he is allowing Tyelperinquar to see him, even if he cannot yet see Tyelperinquar.  

“I am, at that,” Morgoth’s lieutenant confirms with growing amusement. Somewhere at the back of their party Findaráto’s voice wavers for the first time, as if his Song has suddenly come under pressure; the weight of it within Tyelperinquar’s bones shudders, as if a blow has been struck against a plate of armor. “And thou may rest assured, little one, that soon enough I will see thee too.”

The eyes of Morgoth’s lieutenant gleam with delight as he opens his own mouth

and

he

Sings

 

~ ~ ~

_Wilt not reveal to me thy names and thy purposes, little ones? What can such paltry things matter, in the greater scheme of creation? In what system of currency will thy faith, thy loyalty, thy resolve, hold any value if the one who claims them is only so great as thee, and he falters? None, and so too thou shalt fade with him to nothing._

_Eternal day awaits thee, thou wouldst clamor, if thou holdst true, and everlasting light! But I tell thee, no. Then infinite night at least? thou wouldst beg, and stars? But I tell thee, no – nothing awaits thee beyond these walls that I do not will for thee. Nothing at all._

_Come to me. There is no shame in yielding to one greater than thyself – no betrayal, no treachery, no evil – only the sweet stillness of safe haven._

~ ~ ~

To his credit, Findaráto attempts to hold on despite what must be terrible force. Even as he is compelled forward, drawn irresistibly to the front of their ranks as Morgoth’s lieutenant seeks the one who opposes him, Findaráto still Sings.

_Our strength is a tower, my faithful devoted; steadfast it stands, and steadfast are we!_

Then their ranks are parted before him, and he is drawn forth to the front of their party, and Morgoth’s lieutenant catches him up by the front of the neck, lifting him as though he were a newborn kit.

Findaráto screams, but with whatever of his breath remains he still Sings.

_Snares we elude, and traps break at our feet! The prison door falls; the chain snaps, and we fly!_

It is no good, Tyelperinquar aches to tell him. If a hunter sees that the rabbit has spotted the noose, then he has no further reason to stay his hound or his bow; the prey can only expect greater force, fury, pursuit.

In protecting them, Findaráto has only confirmed that they _do_ have something to hide.

But what else is he to do? What are any of them to do?

His own hands prying at the one about his throat, Findarato gasps on. Of Nargothrond and home-that-was, he Sings – of Aman and home-that-ever-is. Of the sea that laps gently underfoot and the pale-sanded shores that too many of his followers have never seen; of the cries of white gulls, the promise of peace.

_Only hold fast, my faithful – my steadfast, my stalwart! Only hold fast, hold fast!_

Morgoth’s lieutenant only smiles, and then

he

Sings.

Of blood upon the Narog’s waters, his Song gently warns; of that home-that-is-not, their lost home-no-now-more. Of blood upon the pearly sand in the West then he Sings, blood leeched from the depths where the Teler now lie; of white-shores-no-more, of gulls silent and spare.

_Hold fa-_

And then Findaráto’s Song falters, falls silent; Findaráto slumps limp. With a curious tilt of his head, Morgoth’s lieutenant opens his hand, and Findaráto plunges to the rubble-strewn floor with a terrible crack of bone.

He is naked, stripped of orcish guise and orcish attire alike.

“So there is that, then,” says Morgoth’s lieutenant, dismissive. At a graceful nudge of his dark-booted foot, Findaráto’s limp form is rolled to lie upon its back – his gold hair, streaked with blood, offers no cover for his nakedness. In Tyelperinquar’s grip, Edrahil cries out and wrenches away, falling to his knees beside his uncrowned king.

“Now,” says Morgoth’s lieutenant, watching with amusement as Edrahil scrambles to cover Findaráto’s nakedness. “What of the rest of thee? Will even one of thy number treat with me?”

“We refuse!” Edrahil cries. Without the cover of Findaráto’s Song, his voice is unmistakably that of an Elda, and Morgoth’s lieutenant nods, satisfied.

“Two Eldar, then. And again, the rest of thee? Remove thy helms, or they will be removed from thee – the choice is thine.”

Not one of Findaráto’s party removes a single piece of orcish gear, save the cloak with which Edrahil has covered his king.

“Very well.” Morgoth’s lieutenant gestures, and his orcs stream forward to reclaim what was theirs.

But where the others are stripped roughly – helms torn from their heads, armor ripped from their sides, garments rent from their bodies – Morgoth’s lieutenant comes to Tyelperinquar himself.

His eyes are as fire – gold flames, and black coals. His hands, alder-pale and wight-slim, are entirely gentle.

And beneath them Tyelperinquar’s shoulders shake.

“And here thou art, finally,” says Morgoth’s lieutenant. “Long have I sought thee, precious one; long have I awaited thy coming to me!”

Somewhere behind them, Edrahil screams in rage and defiance. “ _This_ is the end to which you came with us, quisling? I had not imagined even a Fëanorian could sink any lower than his own birth; trust you to prove me wrong even in this!”  

It may be a drop of sweat – it may be a tear – that makes its path down Tyelperinquar’s face. “Guardsman, I did not seek this. I warned you that we were being watched.”

Edrahil, unhearing, rages on.

Morgoth’s lieutenant raises a hand from Tyelperinquar’s shoulder, placing it on one side of the orcish helm. “Wilt remove this for me?” The other hand falls lower, to the laces of the orcish jerkin at his throat.

His mouth, Tyelperinquar realizes with horror, may be moving in speech, but Morgoth’s lieutenant has never stopped Singing. And his Song is now one for Tyelperinquar’s ears alone, for

he

Sings

of revealing, uncovering,

baring, exposing

opening

piercing. . .

“No,” Tyelperinquar gasps. “No, no. No!”

At his plea, both hands stop, and Morgoth’s lieutenant is still.

Valar save him. Valar save them all.

“If thou wilt not have it so, precious one, then thou needst but say,” says Morgoth’s lieutenant. Such gentle words, tender words, drip from his mouth, but all around them, his Song perseveres. “I have told thee before, and will tell thee again – whatever thou wouldst ask of me, thou shalt have.”

Behind and beside them, Findaráto’s party have been stripped as was their king. Only Tyelperinquar remains clad and helmed. 

A terrible idea is forming. A terrible solution, that Morgoth’s lieutenant had surely planned for him.  

“Whatever I asked?” Tyelperinquar inquires. That is not a sob in his voice, not a tear!

 “Whatever thou wouldst ask, will be done,” Morgoth’s lieutenant promises again.

“Then release us.”

And Morgoth’s lieutenant smiles, slow and sweet. “I said thou must ask, sweet thing, not demand. And though thy will shall be done, its price must be met.”

 

~ ~ ~

Into a dark pit they are cast, even the wounded. They are dragged to sit against a stone wall and their arms are chained in the darkness above their own heads.

Save Tyelperinquar.

For him the orcs bring a chair of Noldorin make, saved from the destruction of Minas Tirith, and he is bound not with chains but soft rope.

They leave him facing the rest of Findaráto’s party.

“Only one thing I require, and then thou art free,” says Morgoth’s lieutenant, taking his place in the center of the pit. He is addressing them all – Tyelperinquar in his relative comfort, still clad and helmed and only lightly bound, and the rest of Findaráto’s party in their far direr straits. 

“I seek only thy names, and thy purpose,” he continues, surveying Findaráto’s faithful as if assessing their value. “Where thou art bound, and what thine leader hath proposed to accomplish there. To a soul, though, thou hast denied me. I mislike this withdrawal.”

“So, a solution I propose to thee.” To one end of their line Morgoth’s lieutenant now paces, then back down to the other. “No cruel god am I – indeed well-loved for my rationality and reason – and to the one who first speaks now I offer benediction. Each of thee I will ask once more; those who deny me again will die.”

“Save thou,” Morgoth’s lieutenant tells Tyelperinquar, coming to stand by his chair. “Thou may ask anything of me, and I will grant it – if in turn thou wilt offer me something of thine. We are agreed?”

None speak, in answer or in protest. And even now, Findaráto lies insensible.

“Good!” says Morgoth’s lieutenant. “Then let us begin.”

 

~ ~ ~

Morgoth’s lieutenant questions one of Edrahil’s guards first. When she will not respond to his inquiries – will not even look upon him, but only gazes straight ahead – Morgoth’s lieutenant sighs, and withdraws. As if at the signal, a great grim wolf emerges from the shadows at the edges of the pit, and rips into her gut.

Tyelperinquar is not the only one of them who screams. The Man Beren is not among those who do.

They are children of Middle-earth, the majority of these Eldar; born not into the kindly West, but to a fiercer land that demands its due in breath and blood and bone. They have drawn and lost blood before, some of them; they have known pain and loss before, all of them. But for all that, death among the Eldar – even in upon these shores, even in battle – is rarely so visceral, so protracted.

So – intimate. 

_(is this what ~~his father~~ Curufinwë and Tyelkormo and their father and their brothers did at Alqualondë so long ago, falling upon the fisher-folk with their steel swords? small wonder they are cursed, then, and rightfully so)_

Though she falls quiet soon enough, for a long time yet the guard does not die.

  
~ ~ ~

When Morgoth’s lieutenant re-emerges, the next he comes to stand before is Asëanarmo. “Wilt tell me thy name and thy errand, little one?”

Weakened by the orc-wound to his belly not six days past, and further drained by rough travel and care, the young cook’s apprentice can barely lift his weakened head to face his tormentor. But he shakes it in defiance.

Again, Morgoth’s lieutenant sighs and steps back, turning as if he would return to the shadows as he did before. Again, a great wolf of fell shape and unnatural size draws forward.

 “Please,” says Tyelperinquar.

“Finally thou wilt speak!” Morgoth’s lieutenant cries, holding up a hand to halt his wolf’s advance. “And what wilt thou have, pretty thing? Recall our accord – a bargain for a bargain, or thou shalt walk free if thou canst tell me of thine errand.”

Edrahil’s eyes burn, though he speaks no more.

“You may have my helm,” Tyelperinquar tells Morgoth’s lieutenant. “Only have mercy upon my companion.”

“Tsk,” Morgoth’s lieutenant scolds, drifting back towards him. “Thou wilt be stingy with thy gifts, then, eh? No matter, for I shall prize them all the same.”

Gently, oh ever so gently, Morgoth’s lieutenant raises the rusted orcish helm from Tyelperinquar’s head, and oh. _Oh_.

After so long seeing the world only through the narrow slats, even this dark pit seems bright. And –

And, Valar save them all, but Morgoth’s lieutenant is a creature of beauty to behold. When not night-veiled, or in wight-guise, or half-hid by the orcish helm, he is tall and comely and golden.

“Or perhaps not stingy after all,” Morgoth’s lieutenant murmurs, examining Tyelperinquar’s face too with quiet delight. “How beautiful art thy face and features, precious one – this was a bargain well struck after all!”

Behind Morgoth’s lieutenant now, the wolf advances upon Asëanarmo once more.

Only this time it rips out its victim’s throat.

“Hush, now, precious, hush,” the vision that is Morgoth’s lieutenant soothes, to Tyelperinquar’s cries. “Thy companion didst not suffer – t’was as quick and clean a death as mine creatures can provide. I have upheld my end of it, as thou upheld thine. Now. Shalt try again?”

 

~ ~ ~

Exchange by exchange, Morgoth’s lieutenant works his way through the rest of Findaráto’s party, questioning each member of their name and purpose.

Exchange by exchange, Morgoth’s lieutenant and Tyelperinquar work through the rest of Findaráto’s party, as Findaráto’s faithful refuse to betray their king, and Tyelperinquar refuses to allow another messy, prolonged death when he holds the means to prevent it.

And he quickly learns that mercy is the best he can beg for. He attempts to ask for release, or escape, but in the first case Morgoth’s lieutenant actually kneels before the Elda in question and begins to drag him to a messy and painful orgasm right before the eyes of all. Over his screams, Tyelperinquar cries for mercy again, and the fletcher dies with a wolf at his throat. In the second case, Morgoth’s lieutenant actually has the guardsman unchained, and, laughing, says that he may leave the tower if he can outrun the orcs and wolves.

Only he has picked the guardsman blinded in the attack at the Ivrin.

Again Tyelperinquar must add a second request, and again, when he asks for mercy the guardsman dies, screaming, in the air somewhere above the pit.

 

~ ~ ~

Tyelperinquar had thought to string his tormentor along, by granting him the orc-helm.

Only now, he finds that he has less and less gear remaining left to give, especially when he must rectify his mistakes and offer a second bargain to buy his companions’ deaths.

He does not know what he can offer, once all the gear is gone.

_(of course he knows what else he can offer)_

_(of course he does)_

 

~ ~ ~

And then he is naked, and only four of Findaráto’s party remain – Findaráto himself, still insensate and broken, and Beren; Tyelperinquar himself, full unclothed, and Edrahil.

Edrahil is next.

And of course the chief guardsman will not betray his king.

Before Morgoth’s lieutenant has even finished his inquiry, Edrahil has leaned forward and spat at his feet. He is the first, and only, of the party besides Tyelperinquar to speak to their enemy. “To the void with you, and your dark master, and your Fëanorian pet, Abominate One!”

Morgoth’s lieutenant sighs. Stepping forward, he drags the toe and the top of his otherwise-immaculate boot up between Edrahil’s legs, wiping off the guardsman’s own spit with a none-too-gentle force. Edrahil shrieks.

Another wolf, larger than those come before, emerges from the shadows, and Tyelperinquar – hesitates.

A slow smile spreads across the face of Morgoth’s lieutenant as he notices. Against the wall, Edrahil whimpers in pain. 

“How this one hath tormented thee,” Morgoth’s lieutenant says, conspiratorially. “Oh, do not try and protest – hast forgotten how I have seen it all? How he has mocked thee, doubted thee, insulted thee and thine motivations at every turn – why, even now he abuses thee, despite having seen thy compassion and sympathy for all those come before him! Wilt thou truly request aught of me for this one, precious?”

Tyelperinquar has neither helm nor raiment left to give. He might try hair, or nails, or a smaller limb whose loss he could survive, but he doubts that Morgoth’s lieutenant will look upon such an ‘exchange’ with a graceful eye, and he must maintain some equilibrium here. He is only lucky to have come so far, so unscathed – stars know why Morgoth’s lieutenant desired his nakedness, and was willing to play with him for it, but –

But oh, Tyelperinquar is weary. He has given as much – and now, with this taunting game of exchanges, more – for Findaráto as has Edrahil, and had even warned the guardsman, repeatedly, when he knew that the wight posed some danger. And in response?

Ever has Edrahil scorned him, taunted him, denied him.

What does Tyelperinquar owe Edrahil?

Nothing.

And certainly nothing of himself, to such a one as Morgoth’s lieutenant, in exchange.

The taunting smile of Morgoth’s lieutenant only grows, and the great wolf draws forward, snarling. Edrahil, still bent in agony over himself, does not realize his danger, or the length of his impending death.

Tyelperinquar is tired – oh so tired, tired, tired. But whatever else, he is not like the one who was once his father.

Tyelperinquar is not Curufinwë.

“Please,” he tells Morgoth’s lieutenant, starting again what has by now become a familiar dance.

“Oh?” Morgoth’s lieutenant asks, and if he is disappointed that Tyelperinquar seeks his mercy yet again, then he does not say. “What wilt thou ask of me?”

“Mercy for my companion,” Tyelperinquar says dully.

“And what dost thou offer in exchange?” Morgoth’s lieutenant asks.

“My bonds,” Tyelperinquar says, tugging lightly against the soft rope binding his arms behind his back. The rest have been vanished along with the orcish gear.

“Mmm, this offer I fear I must refuse,” Morgoth’s lieutenant says, as if with great regret. “For the bonds thou wouldst offer are already mine, and I need something of thine for our bargain to proceed.”

Edrahil screams and screams as the great wolf tears out his gut, beginning that long and painful death. 

 “Then my bonds, and a kiss,” says Tyelperinquar.

Beside his chief guardsman, Findaráto of Nargothrond – finally, finally – stirs.

 “Acceptable,” says Morgoth’s lieutenant. His wolf knocks Edrahil over, out across Findaráto’s twisted legs, and bites down, rips out, again; Edrahil dies in a gurgle of blood.

The lips of Morgoth’s lieutenant are soft, and chaste, and sweet, against Tyelperinquar’s own, and he smells of fire, and metal, and beneath it all, of the dew-touched alders that grace the banks of the Narog.

 

~ ~ ~

“And the others?” the dying king pleads.

“All are dead,” Beren whispers, tugging in vain at his shackles. He would hold this great Elf, to ease his last moments – he knows not what fell strength allowed the uncrowned king of Nargothrond to snap his chains, to throw himself upon the wolf that threatened Beren’s life, but he would offer him what comfort he could, all the same.

If comfort could be had.

“And my nephew?” the dying king breathes. “Tyelperinquar?”

If his ears were sharper, Beren imagines – if the Lord Felagund’s were not fading, and fading fast – then they would know, in woeful detail, precisely what has become of the one they called Tyelperinquar. For, though the Lord Felagund had the strength to break his bonds and the will to protect the last of his followers, he had fallen at the last, his legs broken by his fall of the feet of Morgoth’s lieutenant.

And so it had fallen to Tyelperinquar to succor them, the lord Felagund and Beren both, just as he had all the others.

“He is dead,” Beren says finally.

And even as he speaks what must be a lie, for the taken one’s sake he prays it is true.

 

**Author's Note:**

> A brief a note on the thought process behind names here: Curufin uses his father name because that's the one he's most proud of, and Celegorm goes by his mother name because it has been the one he's held longest. They, and Celebrimbor and Finrod, all still use their Quenya names despite the Ban because Thingol can't really reach them to enforce it.
> 
> Finally, a tremendous thank-you to Ao3/tumblr's own [erlkoenig](http://archiveofourown.org/users/erlkoenig/pseuds/erlkoenig), who has been super patient with my mis-reading an AiA prompt!


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